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Hi friends! We’re looking for a volunteer WordPress guru to help us update the look of the bookfair website. If you are that person, or know that person, please contact us at bayareabookfair at gmail.com (Everyone who works on the bookfair is a volunteer, by the way).

We’ll be posting more updates – a 2014 financial summary and updates on 2015 – soon!

Dogs and other animals (aside from service animals) are not permitted at The Crucible. The Crucible is an industrial work space that includes machinery for welding, glass flame working, blacksmithing, etc. Classes will be in session throughout the day and the facility is not a safe place for animals because of noise, heat, and open flames. Please do not bring an animal into the building.

We still have a few posters! A couple people have contacted us saying we should have posters up at various locations. If you think we should have posters up at a particular place, please email us and we can get you some posters to distribute.

This year as part of our nod to the “fair” theme, we’ll be hosting several carnival games and games of chance! Aside from having fun at the Book Fair, we want to provide a fun way for groups and organizations to raise funds.

Have a silly, creative, insightful or satirical game idea? Want to offer tarot readings? Want to create a dunking booth, wheel of fortune, or ball-toss game? (Remember the “Throw a Shoe at Bush” carny game that appeared in Justin Herman Plaza in 2009? Photo below provided by LisaRuth Elliott)

We’d love to have you! If you or anyone is interested in coordinating a booth, please get in touch! Although space would be free to you, we only have a limited number of booths available. Also, the event runs from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m, and we would ask you to commit to being there during those hours.

Hi everyone! We’re looking forward to seeing you this weekend. A few things to know!

Getting There

The entrance to the book fair is at 333 14th Street, between Mission and Julian – look for the sandwich board signs shown above!

Public transportation: The book fair is located approximately 2 blocks from the 16th St Mission BART station, and on several bus lines.

Bicycles: There will be bike racks inside the venue for bike parking.

Parking: On January 6, 2013, San Francisco started Sunday hours at parking meters. There is street parking right near the Armory, and meters are enforced 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. on Saturday and noon to 6 p.m. on Sundays, and most spots have a 1 or 2 hour time limit. There are several parking garages in the area, the closest one is on the corner of 14th and Julian, almost across the street from the venue. If you don’t mind walking a few blocks, you can head east toward Folsom St to find unmetered street parking.

Food

Because of construction in the building, there will be NO food for sale inside the book fair this year. However, there are tons of cafes, shops, and restaurants within a few blocks.

Hours

The hall will be open 10 am to 6 pm on Saturday and Sunday.

The complete speaker schedule is here. We will have paper copies of the schedule available at the info table.

There are tons of events going on within a few blocks! Check out a list here.

The Anarchist Cafe is on!
The Anarchist Cafe will happen on Friday March 15th from 7-10pm, the night before the San Francisco Anarchist Bookfair.
It is time to step away from our meetings and be social. We will have food, coffee, tea and music indoors and a covered hang out space outdoors. We are serving dinner until 9pm or until the food runs out, whichever comes first. As in past years, the Cafe will happen at 225 Potrero Avenue in San Francisco. We are asking for a donation of $5-20 at the door, but no one will be turned away. The money will go to support political projects.
Please no drugs or alcohol. Note the ending time, so don’t show up late and get disappointed.
If you are interested in volunteering at the Café contact Mike E. at mikee1051 (at) yahoo.com or through the event’s facebook page and include what you would like to do (make food, do dishes, or work the door) and the approximate times you can be available for.

SATURDAY March 16: Subversive Book Event 11 a.m. to 6 p.m.

Join us at Station 40 on March 16th for a subversive book event. Organized as an autonomous addition to the festivities of the book fair weekend and the Bay Area’s 8 Days of Anarchy, this subversive book event will include tabling by various anarchist projects from around the country. Proceeds from the event will go towards legal expenses for the Cleveland 4. Connor Stevens, Douglas Wright, Brandon Baxter, and Joshua “Skelly” Stafford are four comrades who are collectively serving decades in prison after being entrapped by the FBI. For more information on the Cleveland 4′s case, visit their legal support site at: www.cleveland4solidarity.org. There will also be materials for folks to write and send letters to prisoners.

Station 40 is located directly across from the 16th and Mission BART plaza, and two blocks from the Armory. The address is 3030b 16th Street.

Station 40 is a long-term, collectively run, anticapitalist events space by and for anarchists, heretics, broke people and many others who seek a world without domination. Police and other law enforcement officials, uniformed or otherwise, are not permitted or welcome.

In The Work presents: A Day of (A) THEORY & DIY Skill Shares!’A Day of (A) Theory & DIY Skill Shares” will aim to retain, deepen and strengthen the subversive and dangerous texts, ideas and ways of being and doing that anarchist thought and practice make possible.

The day will include tabling from various anarchist publishers and thinkers, discussion relevant to struggle in our current post-modern trajectory, and craft presentations. If you have an interest in tabling, talking, or presenting something practical drop us a line!

All tables and speakers/discussions will use In The Works event space for free/donation only. All donations received from this event will go
to the <em>Free Jeremy Hammond!</em> legal fund. Jeremy Hammond is a 28 year old anarchist and web-developer from Chicago who is being accused of hacking Strategic Forecasting(Stratfor), and publishing this information via the website Wikileaks.org, as the ‘Global Intelligence Files’.

WHERE: In The Works/ is located 1 1/2 blocks from the 16th Street Mission BART station at 3265 17th Street, between Mission & Capp Streets.

We humbly request your participation in the 2013 instance of the Berkeley Anarchist Students of Theory And Research & Development conference. We meet every year to discuss new, old, and interesting ideas in anarchist theory. This year our emphasis is on Ethics & Aesthetics. Submit your proposals to conference@sfbay-anarchists.org

This year, BASTARD is interested in the relation of ethics and aesthetics to our ideal; are we trying to make the world more beautiful or more ethical? If we are hewing to an aesthetic vision, how does replacing the ‘good’ with the ‘beautiful’ prevent us from recreating the problems of moralism with different language, if we are retaining some concept of ethics, how is it distinct from christian or liberal morality?
What motivates us as anarchists? Not only what is sexy and appealing and easy to say, but what shapes the worlds we are trying to move toward? What criteria do we use to assess our actions or affirm our intentions, how do we make assessments of others?
How does the interplay of Ethics and Aesthetics shape our tactics, relationships, projects, and conceptions of ourselves as anarchists? How is this question related to the broad strains of anarchist thought?
We will be meeting on March 17th 2013 from 10am – 6pm. Most likely this meeting will occur in the East Bay. We look forward to seeing you all there.

Anarchism, Pornography, and Being an Ally: Conflict and Collaboration in the Past, Present, and Future.
Saturday 6:30 to 8:30
CIIS Room 304, 1453 Mission Street (between 10th and 11th)

REVISED!

In response to the criticisms of the Armory Community Center as the venue for the 18th Bay Area Anarchist Book Fair, the organizing committee has taken several steps, including organizing a forum to address some of the issues raised, at a venue outside of the Armory so that those critical of the venue would feel comfortable attending.

The forum will be Saturday March 16 from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. at CIIS. This moderated discussion will include two sections:

Mapping the conflict: What is the actual issue here? Is it pornography? BDSM? Kink.com’s labor practices? How anarchists interact with institutions and/or with non-anarchists? This first section will attempt to parse out the conflict so that those present have greater understanding of the priorities and values that have shaped the debate, and what the divides in our community actually are. This will happen as a large group or in smaller groups depending on how many people are present.

This will be followed by a group discussion with guiding questions provided by the moderators.

The Book Fair Committee would like to address the recent criticisms of the new location for the book fair, The Armory Community Center.

As has been mentioned previously, the old venue (The Hall of Flowers/County Fair Building in Golden Gate Park) had become prohibitively expensive and difficult to work with. Rental fees there almost doubled over the last three years, with additional mandatory “hiring” of Park Rangers (an armed branch of law enforcement), coupled with further punitive restrictions (e.g. no valet bike parking, restrictions on selling outside). After an exhaustive search and much discussion, we decided to relocate the Book Fair for 2013 to The Armory Community Center, owned by Kink.com.

In the search for the new venue, we considered many locations, but ruled them out because of several reasons, including size (being large enough to include all vendors), a room for speakers separate from the vendor hall, cost, and availability during March 2013. We have included below a list of the venues considered/investigated in the search to find a successor to the County Fair Building.

The Bay Area Anarchist Book Fair does not make a profit, is organized by a committee of volunteers, and is sponsored by the all-volunteer Bound Together Anarchist collective bookstore. We would like the book fair to remain free to attendees and affordable for vendors (current table price is $150 for two days, though in the past it has been as much as $205). In addition to the rental of the venue, there are additional costs to be considered such as: renting tables/chairs, poster design/printing, security, etc.

In an effort to accommodate all of the vendors, as well as to continue having speakers, we chose The Armory Community Center, which in addition to being affordable (and resulting in a 25% decrease in fees for vendors) is located near public transportation. We also considered that a number of local anarchists have or do work there. We announced this decision in August 2012 and have included the information in all of our materials.

It is our belief that there is a valid political criticism of every venue that is potentially available. The universities we considered, it seems almost self-evident to point out, are the prime engines of defense research, vivisection, and genetic engineering. Many of the venues under consideration are involved in labor disputes, and the County Fair Building/Arboretum is pivotal to privatization of the Parks (to say nothing of the corruption scandal involving the overtime pay of Park Rangers).

Because we live in a capitalist society, and until we have created an explicitly anarchist infrastructure that can support this type of event, such contradictions and compromises are inevitable. We would be happy to consider additional venues for next year. If you have a suggestion of a venue that meets the criteria listed below, please email us at abookfair@yahoo.com.